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A Paris court finds Ali Riza Polat guilty as an accessory to the January 2015 killers.
One of the main suspects in the trial for the Islamist terrorist attack against the French satirical magazine “Charlie Hebdo” has been sentenced to 30 years in prison. Ali Riza Polat was found guilty of complicity in crimes with a terrorist background, French media unanimously reported Wednesday afternoon.
Terrorism charges were dropped for several suspects. The fugitive ex-partner of the supermarket hijacker was sentenced to 30 years in prison in absentia. The attacks resulted in the deaths of 17, of whom three were killed by the police.
Polat is considered the right-hand man of the murderer Amédy Coulibaly, who shot a policewoman and killed four hostages in a supermarket after the attack on the magazine.
Judge Régis de Jorna explained to the France Inter station his decision, according to Judge Régis de Jorna, that the court concluded that Polat had helped the murderer Coulibaly in a concrete and detailed way to carry out his criminal acts. He had enough knowledge of Coulibaly’s intentions.
The prosecutor had asked for life imprisonment. She had argued that the Frenchman with Turkish roots played a key role in preparing for the attacks. Polat had always denied knowing the attack plans.
14 accused, three of them fleeting
In the trial of the terrorist series in January 2015, 14 people were charged, but three of them are on the run. Since the beginning of September, a special court for terrorist cases has been hearing not only the attack on the editorial team of “Charlie Hebdo”, but also the subsequent attack on a kosher supermarket in the south of Paris. The terrorists killed 17 people. The three perpetrators, the brothers Chérif and Said Kouachi and Coulibaly, were shot dead by the security forces.
The defendants were accused of helping in various ways to prepare the attacks. The process in the Palace of Justice in Paris is carried out under strict security precautions. It had been discontinued for about a month because several defendants had contracted the coronavirus. More recently, Polat’s health had delayed the resumption. Among other things, he complains of persistent nausea.
